Sadiq Khan Bankrupted TfL Before COVID Hit London, Claims Mayoral Candidate Shaun Bailey.

The Mayor of London has claimed the network which keeps the capital moving needed massive Government bailouts due to the 70 percent drop in fares during the coronavirus pandemic. But his rival Shaun Bailey has insisted Mr Khan had “long bankrupted TfL before Covid” hit the city.

The Labour mayor managed to secure a £1.8bn rescue package for the tube and bus service in November.

This was on top of the £1.6bn the Government allocated for TfL six months earlier.

While Boris Johnson said his successor had failed to balance the books, the mayor claimed the only reason TfL needed a cash injection was because of the loss of fares during the coronavirus crisis.

Responding to the claim, Mr Bailey, the Conservative candidate for London’s mayoral election, said: 

“That’s utter rubbish. He had long bankrupted TfL before Covid. “

He has run TfL finances into the ground and what he tried to do is cover that up by saying Covid, Covid, Covid.

“And I think the Government played it blindly because they said to him, here’s the deal: we will cover the cost of Covid, we will not cover the cost of Khan, you’re going to have to step up and cover the cost of some of the sillier decisions you made.

“TfL is precious to London, we need our transport system to work and Sadiq Khan has shown a complete misunderstanding of what he needs to do to make that system work.”

Mr Bailey was also critical of the mayor’s approach to the Crossrail project, which was originally scheduled for completion in December 2018.

TAXI LEAKS EXTRA BIT :

TfL's revenue was already plummeting before the pandemic hit London.

Much was made about the problem when it was revealed at the beginning of last year just how close to running out of funds TfL was.

Although they had managed to reduce its deficit from around £1.5bn to around £127m at the beginning of last year, this blew up to around £2bn as the effects of the virus were felt.

As the lockdown bit and millions of Londoners shifted to work from home, the number of passengers completely dropped off. This meant no money was coming in from ticket sales. 

Another source of income had already dried up when Khan insisted a ban on certain food groups and pictures of bikini clad young ladies which Khan said were offensive to some travellers. To fill the advertising void, thousands of plots were given over to just advertising TfL services. 

Between April and June TfL's revenue plummeted further by around 90 per cent.

But this deficit didn’t stop Khan pushing forward his personal agenda covertly with the supposed temporary implementation of unnecessary segregated cycle lanes, even though no one was using them. 

And now we are told Khan wants a bigger share of everyone’s council tax to try and plug the massive hole in TfL's budget. 

Labour leader Keir Starmer say councils taxes should not rise this year. 

Has he noticed London Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan is putting up council tax 10 %????